April 7th: NOTORIOUS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)

The daughter of a Nazi spy is persuaded to seduce one of her father's friends and infiltrate his organization, while the American agent in love with her helplessly looks on.

British director Alfred Hitchcock was well into his Hollywood tenure by 1945, having directed 8 studio films in just 5 years, including the gothic Best Picture-winner Rebecca. Fresh off working with Ingrid Bergman (at this point one of the biggest stars in the business) on Spellbound, Hitchcock was eager to use the versatile actress for a completely different role: a woman of ill repute brought into the world of espionage.

Despite World War II having just ended, the subject of renegade Nazis was one that attracted audiences, and the recent dropping of atomic bombs on Japan made the story's uranium element a topical one. To write the screenplay, Hitchcock reconnected with previous collaborator Ben Hecht, a two-time Oscar-winner who had proven himself adept at every genre.

Controlling producer David O. Selznick, busy with his own obsessive project, sold the package of  Notorious to competing studio RKO, which resulted in Hitchcock taking over his responsibilities and having much more control over every aspect of the production. His final masterstroke was insisting on the casting of Cary Grant (who had appeared in the director's Suspicion in 1941), playing against type and without his usual charm and loose physicality.

With the exception of a racetrack scene, the film was shot completely in the studio, including the outdoor scenes which utilized rear projection. Location footage was shot by a second unit in Miami and Rio de Janeiro where most of the story takes place. Grant and Bergman were joined in the cast by Claude Rains (Casablanca) and veteran German actress Leopoldine Konstantin.

Some of Hitchcock's most memorable shots are present in the film, including a long kissing scene that utilized a loophole in the censors' Production Code, and a crane shot that begins on a balcony and descends down to a close-up of a hand. Other visual tricks abound, with forced perspective, POV shots, and zooms.

The film was Hitchcock's first to be entered in competition in the Cannes Film Festival. It was a critical and financial success in the United States, and earned Oscar nominations for Rains as Supporting Actor and Hecht's script. It is now regarded as one of the director's greatest films.

Running time is approx. 100 minutes.